Why corn & soy free? Here's an old fashioned standpoint.
In case you didn't know, over the past few years, we've transitioned all of our animals to be corn & soy free. Our dairy and beef and lamb have always been 100% grass fed. It's nothing new and simply the most natural way. I'm more talking about our animals that need supplemental feed in addition to what they forage for in the woods or at pasture - pigs, chickens, laying hens, and turkeys. There is just one exception: our GMO-free eggs. We're offering them now simply because we don't have enough corn & soy free eggs for everyone. They're the second best option around. Once our corn & soy free flock gets big enough, we'll likely discontinue the GMO-free eggs. But why? Why go corn & soy free? What's the big deal? Recently, I've heard a bunch of farms touting low PUFAs or having great omega 6/3 ratios. Well, that's all fine and well. It's always nice to have science back up what you're doing. But, it's not really about that for me and my brother Phil. Sometimes it's softer, sometimes just by doing things that are innately natural lead to better health. The scientific whys and hows seem to constantly be changing, but the fact that natural is better has been a constant for a loooong time. Forget PUFAs. Forget omegas. Going corn & soy free is honestly the most old fashioned, most natural way of doing things in our confusing modern world of agriculture. Here are 5 reasons why (as it mostly relates to chickens): Chickens naturally forage for small grains, not big ones like corn and soy. If we go back in time, chickens were scavengers. They'd live on a farm or homestead and mostly fend for themselves. They would find kitchen scraps in the compost pile (veggies and grain and even meat). They would find spilled feed from other animals and eat that. And of course they would forage for grasses and bugs and seeds. And when foraging, they'd usually go for smaller seeds. Think about how big a grass seed is. It's small, much smaller than a large corn kernel or soybean. A modern, unnatural diet of mainly corn & soy can lead to health issues in animals. Here are a few problems that can arise: It's hard for chickens to digest corn and soy. Trying to do it over and over again can lead to digestive issues. For example, corn is high in starch and ferments easily. Chickens eating too much corn can have intestinal distress. Or, another example is that soy is high in anti-nutrients like lectins. This can interfere with how well a bird digests protein and absorbs nutrients.It can also lead to nutritional imbalances. For example, soy is high in anti-nutrients like lectins. Overconsumption can interfere with how well a bird digests protein and absorbs nutrients.It can lead to gaining weight and growing too fast. It's just unnatural. It can lead to issues with muscles, bones, joints, and the heart. Birds that grow too quickly are more prone to broken bones and lameness. We can avoid modern GMOs with certainty. No risk of cross pollination. Sure, corn and soy have been around for thousands of years. But, today's versions are nothing like they used to be. They've been hybridized and genetically modified. And because of the ridiculous amount of fields filled with GMO corn & soy, there's a pretty good chance of cross pollination nowadays. Eliminating corn and soy also eliminates the risk of anything GMO being in your food. Corn & soy are, more often than not, farmed with modern conventional practices. Those are usually bad for the environment and the future of soil. Corn & soy are the top 2 crops in the US. 90%+ that's grown is GMO. And that means that the farming practices are uber conventional. Tilling, fertilizing with synthetic stuff, spraying lots of chemicals (including glyphosate), etc. These practices usually lead to some big problems environmentally: soil erosion, topsoil loss, loss of microbiology in the soil, loss of ecosystems, pollution in many forms, the list could go on and on! Feeding a natural diet means healthier animals and therefore more nutrition for you! This is just common sense, right? When you eat better, you are healthier. And when it comes to farming, when you have healthier animals, they produce nutrient-dense foods! We do our best to give our animals the most biologically appropriate, most digestible, most bioavailable foods we can. It's really for the health of everything! What do you choose corn & soy free? Is it the PUFA/omega thing or something else?
